Douglas Alexander: International agreement was reached on the urgent need for co-ordinated action to combat the impact of high food prices on the world's poor: in the short term, to address immediate food security needs and in the longer-term, to increase agricultural productivity in developing countries, including through agricultural research, improved policies, a rapid and successful conclusion to the Doha trade round and reduced use of restrictive measures that increase price volatility.

Douglas Alexander: In terms of the volume of British aid, the budget for the Department for International Development was set in the comprehensive spending review last July, and it remains the same. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to recognise that, in light of rising food prices, we need to consider where we need to do more in individual countries. That is why we have already supplemented the long-term support that we are offering to the people of Ethiopia with £5 million for humanitarian supplies that are partly in recognition of the significant rise in food prices that has taken place.
	The hon. Gentleman is also right to recognise that there appears to be a clear correlation between rising input costs, principally those for oil, and the level of hunger being witnessed; that point was made to me by Josette Sheeran when I met her in Rome. She said, "If I look at the oil price, I can immediately tell how many more poor people we will be dealing with through the World Food Programme." That is why I welcome the latest commitment that Gulf states have given to support the flash appeal from the United Nations World Food Programme. I hope that that pattern will be continued in the years ahead.

Gareth Thomas: The UK takes all allegations of misconduct by peacekeepers and aid workers seriously. We fully support the UN Secretary-General's zero tolerance policy towards sexual exploitation and abuse and we work to ensure that the highest standards of conduct are required of UN personnel.

David Cameron: I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Privates Cuthbertson, Gamble and Murray of 2 Para, who were killed on Sunday. Every week, quite rightly, we stand here and read out the names of those who have fallen, and we must remember every week that behind every name are family and friends who are suffering from the loss of a loved one. The Prime Minister and I have both visited Afghanistan. We know that our soldiers are doing incredible work in difficult conditions on our behalf, and, quite simply, they are the best of British.
	I am sure that the Prime Minister will agree with me that it is clear why we are there. If we go, the Taliban come back, the training camps come back and there will be more terrorists on British streets. But after seven years of work in Afghanistan, can the Prime Minister give us a frank and candid assessment today, not just of where we are doing well, but where much more work needs to be done?

Gordon Brown: We have made a judgment, after looking at all the evidence, including the evidence from the police and security services, that this is the right thing to do. I would not want to have to come to the House in a moment of emergency and ask for extraordinary powers, when we could, in a period of calmness, build in a process that will not give the oxygen of publicity to terrorists when we have to take action. The right hon. Gentleman said:
	"When it comes to our national security, I will always listen to the police and security services, and take their advice with the utmost seriousness."
	Ken Jones, the head of ACPO, has made it clear what the police think about the proposal. Hugh Orde, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, has made his position clear. Lord Stevens, the man the right hon. Gentleman says he listens to on police matters, says in  The Times today that
	"there will be really exceptional cases where the Police Service will need to go beyond 28 days."
	Taking into account the advice of the police and security services, but also looking at the weight, complexity and sophistication of the evidence that must be examined, it seems to me that we should put in place the legislation in a moment of calm. I do not want, in a moment of panic, for people to have to come to the House to bring in emergency legislation.

Gordon Brown: I, too, have met and seen the courage of Mr. Sudbury who, as my hon. Friend says, is using the last few weeks of his life to try to make people better aware of the dangers that result when bone marrow donation is not available. The promotion of the donation of blood, bone marrow and organ is a priority for the Department of Health. We are looking at what we can do. The key issue is whether we can encourage people to be donors. I believe that in the next few months we will be able to put proposals that will assist, if not Mr. Sudbury, many other people who suffer as a result of these illnesses.

Celia Barlow: I am sure that the House will join me, in national carers week, in my admiration for the 6 million unsung heroes who are looking after their loved ones and in giving thanks for the £225 million of extra Government money announced yesterday, but as life expectancy is increasing carers are retiring and still looking after their parents. Will the Prime Minister please tell me what extra measures he has in place, and will have in place, for those elderly carers?

Jennifer Willott: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the removal from the DNA Database of DNA samples taken from individuals who are not charged or are acquitted; and for connected purposes.
	Everyone accepts that DNA has been a massive breakthrough in crime detection, helping to solve the crimes of today and also some of the cold cases from 20 to 30 years ago. However, the Government have pursued this breakthrough in a disproportionate way.
	The UK has by far the largest DNA database in the world, with 4.5 million people registered. Proportionally, five times more people are on our database than is the case with the next closest country. We think of the US as having a punitive criminal justice system, but less than 1 per cent. of its population is on the US database, whereas we have around 6 per cent. Moreover, it has been estimated that under current laws, the database will expand to include one in four of our adult male population.
	The number of children on the database is particularly worrying. At the moment, it is estimated that it contains entries for more than 700,000 people who were under 18 when they were arrested and their DNA was taken. In case hon. Members think that some of them might have deserved what they got, I should add that there are estimated to be more than 100,000 children under 18 on the database who have never been convicted, cautioned or charged with any offence.
	I am sure all hon. Members will have seen various crazy cases across the country. There are examples from every constituency. A quick trawl of press clippings threw up the case of three children who were hauled into a police station because they climbed a cherry tree to build a tree house. They were arrested for criminal damage and had their DNA taken, but the case was never taken any further. Another example is the 14-year-old boy who was a victim of mistaken identity when teachers at his school gave police the wrong name after a brawl between pupils.
	Even after admitting they had arrested the wrong boy, the police refused to remove his DNA. Whereas in the past schoolboy fights, high jinks and lads climbing trees would have resulted in a stern word and them being taken home, children are now getting criminal records and their DNA is being held on the database for ever.
	We should also be worried about the sheer number of ethnic minorities on the database and the racial imbalance. Almost 40 per cent. of black men have their DNA profile held, compared with 13 per cent. of Asian men and 9 per cent. of white men, despite the fact that there is no evidence that black men disproportionately commit crime. In fact, evidence suggests that white men are more likely to offend than black men. This over-representation of black men creates mistrust and continues to fuel problems that are much larger, such as the disproportionate representation of black men in our criminal justice system. Also, problems of race relations, community cohesion and discrimination, either perceived or real, are made worse. Moreover, the situation is getting worse. At the current rate, more than half of all black men will be on the database within two years.
	This highlights one of the main objections to holding the DNA of those who are not charged or who are acquitted. One of the fundamental tenets of British justice is "innocent until proven guilty". Refusing to destroy samples taken from those who are never charged or who are later acquitted completely blurs that principle. The DNA database assumes that people will be guilty of something in the future; that is why the samples are kept. This is very Big Brother; George Orwell must be spinning in his grave.
	When the national DNA database was created in 1995, only the DNA of convicted offenders could be held, and samples had to be destroyed if the suspect was acquitted or charges were dropped. Because by 2001 the Government were breaking their own law—presumably as a result of incompetence rather than design—the law was changed to allow the profiles of those acquitted of certain crimes to be kept. That was expanded even more in 2004, when samples could be taken from anyone arrested for a recordable offence. By the end of 2005, 200,000 samples which would have been destroyed before 2001 had been retained, and that number has since soared. There are now estimated to be more than 1 million people who have not been charged or convicted on the database—three times the population of a city the size of Cardiff, where I live. Those are 1 million people considered innocent under British law, but considered potentially guilty by the Home Office. By retaining that DNA, the state is saying, "Well, you might not have been convicted, but we think you may commit an offence in future and we want to make sure we can catch you when you do." That is not acceptable.
	It is almost impossible, however, for someone to remove their sample from the database. Since the changes in 2004, fewer than 700 people have managed to remove their profiles—700 out of the 1 million innocent people on the database. The police control which samples are removed. People have to apply to the chief constable of the force that took the sample in the first place, who is hardly an independent arbiter. The Government may be forced to change this shortly, as there is a case before the European Court of Human Rights, brought by two men from Sheffield—one of whom was under 18 at the time—who have applied to have their DNA removed on the grounds that they were both cleared and neither has a criminal record. The ECHR is expected to rule this summer, and a finding against the Government could open the floodgates on this issue.
	Even if some people might not agree with the civil liberties case for removing the DNA of innocent people, there is a very strong practical case. The Government have already said that they believe that the DNA of the majority of the active criminal population is now recorded, so why the mad rush to take samples from so many other people? The DNA database is not without cost. The costs of sampling increasing numbers, maintaining an expanding database and storing millions of samples will continue to grow.
	However, there is very little evidence that these increasing costs will have much of an impact on crime detection. Despite the massive expansion in the number of individuals on the database, the percentage of recorded crimes solved as a result of a DNA match has remained fairly constant; the figures I have seen show it to be below 0.4 per cent. A bigger difference has been made at the other end of DNA matching: at the crime scene. At present, less than 20 per cent. of crime scenes are forensically examined, and only a small proportion of them yield any biological material that is then tested. Clear-up rates are much higher when DNA is found at a crime scene, so should we not be putting resources into that end of things, rather than into collecting individuals' samples?
	One argument often used to justify the keeping of DNA is that it will help to solve cold cases, but that is fallacious. When someone is arrested and their DNA is taken, that should be tested against unidentified crime scene DNA, as is done. That will identify whether they have committed any unsolved crimes, and that is fine, but if they have not, holding their DNA after that point is irrelevant. In addition, the massive cost of holding the samples is borne by police forces. I am sure that I am not alone in thinking that the money might be better spent on front-line policing, to ensure that fewer crimes are committed and our communities are kept safe.
	Following the European case, the Government may have to change their policy anyway, but I would like to propose a solution. Some countries, such as Scotland, France and Canada, have legislated against retaining DNA samples from those who are acquitted. I believe we should follow their lead, and remove innocent people's DNA from the database. Samples and profiles should be destroyed if the individual is not convicted or cautioned, although there should be an exception for those accused of a violent or sexual offence. Their samples should be kept—not indefinitely, but for a specified time. In addition, all children under 16, unless guilty of a violent or sexual offence, should have their DNA removed from the database. If we treat them like criminals at such an early age, they may well go on to fulfil our expectations.
	We are talking about a huge number of people—1 million of them—whose deeply private information is being held by the Government when they have not been found to have done any wrong. That goes against fundamental British principles, as well as being a massive drain on public resources for little gain, and this Bill would rectify that injustice.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Jenny Willott, Sarah Teather, Tom Brake, Mr. Paul Burstow, Chris Huhne, David Howarth, Kelvin Hopkins, Keith Vaz, Mr. Gordon Prentice and Mr. Stephen Crabb.

38 The judicial authority with power to extend detention under section 41 has power to release the suspect on bail, with conditions."'.
	New clause 31— Compensation for detention—
	'(1) The Secretary of State must, within twelve months of the date on which this Act is passed, make regulations providing for a compensation scheme ("the scheme") governing payments made to suspects who are detained under the provisions of Schedule [Amendments relating to period of pre-charge detention] and not charged with an offence.
	(2) The scheme shall specify levels of payments to be made to suspects so detained and different levels may be set for different periods of detention.
	(3) The Secretary of State may by order vary the levels of compensation set by the scheme.
	(4) Regulations and orders made under this section are subject to affirmative resolution procedure.'.
	New clause 33— Expiry or renewal of extended maximum detention period: further parliamentary safeguards—
	'(1) The Terrorism Act 2006 is amended as follows.
	(2) After subsection (6) of section 25, there is inserted—
	"(6A) The Secretary of State and the panel appointed under section 36 must lay annual reports before Parliament on the operation of the extended period of pre-charge detention.
	(6B) No motion to approve a draft order under subsection (6) may be made by a Minister of the Crown until one month has elapsed since the publication of the reports laid under section (6A).".
	(3) In section 36—
	(a) in subsection (1) for "person" there is inserted "panel of persons";
	(b) in subsection (2)—
	(i) for "That person" there is inserted "The panel";
	(ii) for "he" there is inserted "it"; and
	(iii) for "his" there is inserted "its";
	(c) in subsection (3)—
	(i) for "That person" there is inserted "The panel"; and
	(ii) for "his" there is inserted "its";
	(d) in subsection (4), for "That person" there is inserted "The panel";
	(e) in subsection (6)—
	(i) for "a person" there is inserted "the persons"; and
	(ii) for "his" there is inserted "their".
	(4) In section 36, after subsection (1) there is inserted—
	"(1A) A person may not be appointed under subsection (1) unless—
	(a) the Secretary of State lays a report on the appointment process before both Houses of Parliament, and
	(b) a Minister of the Crown makes a motion in both Houses to approve the report laid under this subsection.".'.
	New clause 36— Power to declare reserve power exercisable (No. 2)—
	'An order made by the Secretary of State under section [ Power to declare reserve power exercisable] shall be treated for the purposes of the Human Rights Act as subordinate legislation and not primary legislation.'.
	New clause 37— Power to declare reserve power exercisable (No. 3)—
	'The grounds on which an order made by the Secretary of State under section [ Power to declare reserve power exercisable] shall be subject to judicial review shall include—
	(a) that a grave exceptional terrorist threat has not occurred or is not occurring;
	(b) that the reserve power is not needed for the purpose of investigating the threat and bringing to justice those responsible; and
	(c) that the need for the power is not urgent.'.
	New clause 38— Amendment to section 25 of the Terrorism Act 2006—
	'(1) Section 25 of the Terrorism Act 2006 (c. 11) (expiry or renewal of extended maximum detention period) is amended as follows.
	(2) After subsection (3), insert—
	"(3A) (a) The Secretary of State may only make an order under subsection (3) if she is reasonably satisfied that making the order is necessary for the effective investigation of terrorist offences.
	(b) In determining what is necessary for the effective investigation of terrorist offences the Secretary of State must take into account the availability of post-charge questioning, the practice of the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to the weight of evidence required to bring charges and any changes to the relevant law of evidence or procedure since this Act came into force."'.
	New clause 39— Habeas Corpus (No. 2)—
	'(1) Nothing in this Act shall prevent or restrict a person who is detained under this Act or a person duly authorised on behalf of that person from making an application to a Justice of the High Court for habeas corpus.
	(2) It shall be a condition of the detention that the person detained shall be produced forthwith to a Justice of the High Court or to a senior immigration judge authorised to sit as a member of the Special Immigration Appeal Commission who shall enquire as to—
	(a) the circumstances of the detention;
	(b) the enquiries that are being made;
	(c) the likelihood of the detained person being charged within 42 days of any offence of terrorism or related serious indictable offence.
	(3) If the Justice of the High Court or senior immigration judge is not satisfied as to the likelihood of the person detained being charged within 42 days that person shall be released forthwith from detention subject to any conditions the judge may impose.'.
	Government amendment No. 4
	Government new schedule 1— 'Amendments relating to period of pre-charge detention
	Government amendment No. 5
	Amendment No. 98, in schedule 2, in page 64, line 25, at end insert—
	'(2) "emergency" means a public emergency in respect of which there is a designated derogation from the whole or a part of Article 5 of the Human Rights Convention.'.
	Amendment No. 99, in page 64, line 26, leave out paragraph 39.
	Amendment No. 100, in page 65, line 29, at end insert
	'if the following conditions are satisfied—
	(a) there is an emergency;
	(b) making the derogating power available is strictly required by the emergency; and
	(c) the availability of the derogating power is consistent with the UK's other international obligations.'.
	Amendment No. 101, in page 66, line 6, leave out sub-sub-paragraph (b).
	Amendment No. 102, in page 66, line 8, leave out 'that the Secretary of State is' and insert
	'the Secretary of State's reasons for being'.
	Amendment No. 103, in page 66, leave out lines 9 to 15 and insert—
	'(a) that there is an emergency;
	(b) that making the derogating power available is strictly required by the emergency; and
	(c) that the availability of the derogating power is consistent with the UK's other international obligations.'.
	Amendment No. 104, in page 69, line 6, leave out '30' and insert 'seven'.
	Amendment No. 105, in page 69, line 9, leave out '30' and insert 'seven'.

Jacqui Smith: Of course, because the prosecutors and the police would have such a significant role in determining whether a further investigation would enable someone to be brought to charge, it is their responsibility to provide the Home Secretary with a report, so that consideration can be given to whether to bring in the order.
	To return to the Civil Contingencies Act, while we do not think that it is the right vehicle on its own, there are aspects of the approach taken in the Act that we have been able to adapt in the Bill's proposals, such as the need to define the nature of the exceptional circumstances in which the reserve power could be used, and the need to gain parliamentary approval for the use of the powers.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman is on the Front Bench. He has had plenty of time in the Chamber and in Committee to take up these points.
	In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden), that is the order of threat that the provision is aimed to deal with—an event or situation involving terrorism which causes or threatens serious loss of human life, serious damage to human welfare or serious damage to the security of the UK. That set of circumstances is a higher test than originally proposed and is similar to the test in the Civil Contingencies Act.

Jacqui Smith: It will be possible to judicially review the Home Secretary's decision on the basis of reasonableness. I have always been clear about that.
	A further safeguard is that the use of the power would be limited to investigations involving only the most serious offences—for example, murder, conspiracy to cause explosions, acts preparatory—that is, those carrying a life penalty.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman well understands the nature of the threat that we face. It aims to cause mass casualties of the sort of people that he describes. That is the type of serious terrorist threat that we are seeking to tackle. The hon. Gentleman is right to remind us whom we are trying to protect.
	Thirdly, our amendments reinforce the temporary nature of the power, reducing the length of time that it can be in force from 60 days to 30 days, with no renewal at the end of that period. In addition to that, there are other safeguards. Individual detention beyond 28 days would, as under present proposals, be considered by a judge. Any application for an extension beyond 28 days would require the approval of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The judge may issue a warrant of further detention only if he is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that further detention is necessary for the investigation of a serious terrorist offence.
	The independent reviewer will report within six months of the reserve power ceasing to be available. A parliamentary debate will take place on that report, which will cover whether, looking back, individual suspects were held in accordance with requirements governing detention, whether proper procedures were followed for applications for detention beyond 28 days, and whether it was reasonable in all the circumstances for the Home Secretary to make the order.

Simon Hughes: Clearly, the Government have rowed back from their original 90 days, but there has always been the qualification that it is possible to restrict the liberties protected by the convention—the words are there—when something amounts to a public emergency threatening the life of the nation, so why does not the Home Secretary rely on that, like all other countries do? Why have we seen every few years under this Government an increase in powers of the state over the citizen, when no other comparable country equally threatened has thought it necessary to move in the same direction?

David Davis: Hon. Members should not heckle the hon. Gentleman—he is well intentioned in this matter. I would say two things to him. First, he is making a case for indefinite detention. Secondly, this is why we asked the Government to consider using the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The Home Secretary says that it is not capable of being used, although David Pannick, the Government's counsel of choice—the man who wrote the textbook on these subjects—says that it is. I offered to the Home Secretary sufficient changes to make it usable in such circumstances, because it contains some protections that are worth having but are not available in the Bill. That was the "CCA plus" offer that people have read about in the papers. We did that on the basis of the argument made by the Home Secretary's predecessor.

David Davis: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I will try to give him the most serious answer I can— [ Interruption. ] —the one that the hon. Gentleman's question deserves, namely, yes. There are two categories of circumstance with regard to a threat to the state that the Government might face. One is a situation that obviously worries the Home Secretary, where perhaps 25 people are arrested and we are left with one, two or three at the end for whom we do not quite have enough evidence. We can deal with that, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), by a variety of other mechanisms, including— [ Interruption. ] Surveillance, I say to the security Minister—I think that is who he is. It certainly can be dealt with that way, but it can also be dealt with by the threshold test for prosecution—the reasonable suspicion test.
	The other circumstance is where there are a vast number of attacks on the state at the same time. The security Minister—the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing—referred to it as the three 9/11s test. Under those circumstances, we would be overwhelmed, and we would need a definition of a state of emergency. This is what the Government object to. The matter is important because full judicial review can apply a test as to whether a state of emergency applies, in a way we cannot as individuals discussing the matter in the House of Commons. That is the point of distinction, which is why we offered the Home Secretary very early on in the process a modification to get "CCA plus", as it was known in the jargon at the time, if she wanted it. We were willing to do that.

Keith Vaz: Anyone could have given evidence to our Committee. We did not take evidence from that particular gentleman, although he has said that he is in favour of the extension. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we could not take evidence from absolutely everyone involved. I have read a list of those involved, but anyone could have submitted evidence to us.
	Despite saying that there was no case for an extension of the permanent limit of 28 days, we made it clear not just in the most recent report, but in a previous report, when the Committee was chaired by my right hon. Friend the now Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills—some of the members who contributed to the 2006 report are still serving on the Committee—that the current limit of 28 days might prove inadequate in the future. Both the Home Secretary and, more particularly, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner told us that they foresaw circumstances in which an extension would be necessary. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden and the former spokesman and current leader of the Liberal Democrats both saw that as a possibility in certain circumstances. We noted that Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney-General, who was part of the Government when they put forward their proposal for 90 days, also envisaged the possibility of an extension in the future.
	We considered at some length Liberty's proposals that part 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 could be used in those exceptional circumstances where we both felt that it would be necessary to go beyond 28 days. We concluded, however, that the Act as currently drafted was not intended to deal with a situation of that kind. I pay tribute to Shami Chakrabarti and Liberty for the way in which they have engaged not just with the Select Committee, but with hon. Members and the Government. It is common knowledge that Liberty met the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and others to discuss the legislation. It is right to engage with organisations such as Liberty, which has a wealth of knowledge and experience that can be put to great use. We felt that the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 was not the right vehicle, however, because we did not believe that the best way to deal with a situation of this kind was to have a state of emergency. Indeed, as the House knows, if the 2004 Act is adopted, it will take the period well beyond what is envisaged in the Government's proposals.
	We urged the Home Secretary to begin urgent discussions with other parties to try to build consensus. I know that she and others have been criticised for engaging with Members of Parliament. Some very cynical points have been made—not so far in today's debate, if I may say so, but outside the House—about why the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing should be discussing matters with Members of Parliament. Of course they should. That is the nature of government. How dreadful it would be if the Government decided on a particular course of action and then never consulted anybody else. I hope that Home Secretary will not mind my having a slight dig at her—I am, after all, supporting her tonight: if only the Government had done the same thing over police pay, there would have been a different scenario. That aside, this engagement is extraordinarily important and has helped to bring a better proposal before the House; it has certainly moved a long way since the original proposals were made in July last year.

Keith Vaz: If a knighthood is on offer, it would sit better on the shoulders of the hon. Gentleman, representing as he does a county seat in Leicestershire.  [Interruption.] No, it was certainly not offered—but I do not know; there is still time.
	To be serious again, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman was seeking to be in making that ridiculous comment, our conclusion was endorsed by 11 votes to one in a cross-party inquiry that included four Conservative Members—the hon. Members for Newark (Patrick Mercer), for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter)—and a Liberal Democrat, the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne). Our conclusion was that there may be in future the possibility of an extension, and we set out very clearly the grave and exceptional circumstances that might exist.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Keith Vaz: I am satisfied that the safeguards that the Government have put in place will deal with all the issues that the hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned. I am satisfied that the proposed parliamentary scrutiny is sufficient. I am pleased that the Home Secretary has lowered the period from 30 days to seven. Of course, if we could all have our lives again, it would be much better if the Civil Contingencies Act had been amended so that these proposals were not brought forward, but we are not there at the moment, and I am satisfied that Government's changes will deal with that situation— [Interruption.]

Keith Vaz: I cannot believe that any e-mail that I could send out could be regarded as being dangerous. I and many colleagues, some of whom are here today, were concerned to ensure that people understood, because if my hon. Friend considers the signatories to that letter, he will see that many of them, including me, represent large numbers of members—

William Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Keith Vaz: I think that the money will be of great benefit to the people of Islington and Hackney, and to those all over the country, as they seek to work and engage with the Government on this issue. I do not think it right for us to feel that we cannot carry communities with us, although I am keen to ensure that the resources that the Government are allocating are allocated fairly and do the job that they were intended to do.
	Finally, let me say something about references to the director general of MI5 and the police. I have not heard the director general of MI5 say—to me or to the Committee—that he wants the period to be extended from 28 days to 42, and the Government are not maintaining that he has said it to them, because that is not his job. The job of the director general of MI5 is to advise the Government about the threat. In his speech, which was presumably on the record—if he did not want it to be reported, he should not have made it to the Society of Editors—the director general, Jonathan Evans, was very clear indeed. Some of the facts have already been given by the Home Secretary. At least 2,000 individuals who are believed to be a direct threat to the safety of our citizens are currently in the United Kingdom, there have been 20 known plots, and 200 suspect groups are being monitored. There have been 15 attempted terrorist attacks in Britain. It is a matter of record, because it is in our report, that the Committee met the director general of MI5. We were not prepared, quite rightly, to discuss what he said to us, but he has said publicly that those threats exist, and are real and growing. That is the advice that he can give.
	In their evidence, the police—Sir Ian Blair, Peter Clarke and others—made it clear to us that they wanted the current period to be extended. I think that Sir Ian Blair talked about "up to 60 days". The police have made the case, and it is not for the security services to do so; nor is it for the Director of Public Prosecutions to do so. I have enormous respect for Ken Macdonald, and we readily agreed that he should appear before the Committee because he had not given evidence for its 2006 report. He made it clear that he did not consider the current period sufficient, but he also said that it was not up to him to decide whether it should be extended. That judgment can be made only by Parliament, and he will deal with whatever Parliament decides.
	I think it quite wrong for Members to start passing the buck to those outside, saying that this or that individual is against the proposal.

Christopher Huhne: I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). In my speech, I shall first explain why an extension of detention without charge matters to ordinary people and their freedoms, then I shall examine the weakness of the Government's case for such an extension and the feeble parliamentary safeguards offered by Ministers, and finally I shall argue that such excessive powers may be seen as illegitimate in substantial sections of our nation, and may act as a recruiting sergeant for the extremists.
	Let me begin by trying to explain why the powers of executive detention contained in the Bill and the amendments are so serious. They are not powers that apply just to other people; they are powers that could apply to any one of us here today. We could be arrested on our way home, in a case of mistaken identity, and locked up—if the Government have their way—not for one day or seven days, but for six weeks. What would a person's employer think? What would their family think? Surely, they might say, the police could not really detain someone without some pretty clear evidence, using powers under a terrorism Act. As every street gossip will tell you, there is no smoke without fire.
	We know, however, that of the six people who have come close to being detained for close to the existing limit of 28 days, half have been released without charge or any subsequent proceedings. Indeed, as was pointed out by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who is no longer in the Chamber, it is inevitable that if these powers go on to the statute book they will be used for lower-priority cases, because the easier cases will have been dealt with first. The number of innocent people who are detained under the new powers is therefore likely to be particularly high.

Dominic Grieve: The hon. Gentleman is right to analyse this area of the Government's proposals, because it is key to whether they are workable. However, I am by no means persuaded that the Home Secretary needs the existence of a "grave exceptional terrorist threat" to extend the maximum period of detention, because as the Bill is currently drafted that is not a prerequisite for doing so. All that is required is a report that such a further extension is needed because it is necessary for one or more of the purposes set out in a subsection that is, effectively, about detaining people, obtaining evidence and carrying out analysis of that evidence.

Christopher Huhne: The hon. Lady is correct to point that out. I have searched in vain for the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East containing precisely the provisions that he suggested in that article; I fear that it does not appear to have made the Order Paper. Perhaps it will be a last-minute addition, rather like the Home Secretary's letter in the Library.
	In any case, it is very hard to see how the House will tread the narrow line between debate that could be prejudicial to a court case and general blather, which would simply boil down to whether the House trusted the judgment of the Home Secretary. That is hardly confidence-inspiring, and it is certainly not a serious check on the potential abuse of Executive power, so those who would believe that there are genuine safeguards in the Bill are misplacing their faith.
	The fight against terrorism is far too important to be reduced to populist symbols that would substantially curb our hard-won freedoms. This cause is central to the Liberal Democrats' belief in the rule of law, and in checks and balances on arbitrary power. The Government run the risk, with these provisions, of giving the terrorists exactly what they want, which is clear evidence of an insensitive and oppressive state. We must not, and we must never, become what we are fighting.

Andrew Dismore: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I shall come on to that point later.
	I do not believe that the Government have made their case for the need for 42 days. In the evidence that they have given to us, the threat level has been described as "about the same". There have been assertions of a growing threat in terms of numbers, but no qualitative analysis or assessment has been provided. We should never underestimate the threat, which is of course serious, but equally we should not over-hype it. We need to give a clear and accurate picture in order to maintain public confidence. I think that it is instrumental that the three most recent attacks have been somewhat amateurish affairs, as we all know.
	The numbers that we are given could mean either that there are more plots and plotters, which would be worrying, or that the substantial extra resources that we have given the security services mean that they know more about such people than they knew before, when they were below their radar—that, of course, would be reassuring. The numbers relate to the general level of the threat, and that is not relevant to the 42-day debate at all. What is relevant to the debate is when the plotters are subject to arrest, if and when these plots become crystallised. We do not have much information about such matters, other than in respect of the cases that we know about. Such cases are far fewer in number than the thousands that we are told exist.
	Although the director of MI5 is prepared to give a lecture to the society of newspaper editors on this issue, he is not prepared to repeat his lecture to a parliamentary Committee and to take questions on it from such a Committee. We invited him to do so. We did not want to talk about the secret squirrel stuff. We wanted only to discuss the broad issues, but he was not prepared to come before us. We wrote to him in December 2007 asking for his assessment of the increase, but we have yet to receive a reply to that letter.

Andrew Dismore: The hon. Lady makes her point, and I shall not demur from it. We are told that the reserve power is needed for a "grave, exceptional terrorist threat". On 23 January, in the  Daily Mirror, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing asked us to imagine two or three 9/11s. On the "Today" programme on 2 June he said that there was a
	"substantial threat against the nation"
	and that we have a
	"backstop for truly exceptional situations"
	He also mentioned the "nightmare" and the "doomsday scenario". If that is so, the powers are already in place. I am talking about the power to derogate from article 5—the right to liberty—and to disapply a fundamental right that goes back to the Magna Carta of 1215.
	My amendment (a) provides a system to enable that derogation to take place. If there is a public emergency threatening the life of the nation, article 15 permits derogation from—that is, disapplication of—the right to liberty. A co-ordinated, large-scale attack on the nation's political, military and financial institutions, such as 9/11 in the US, would meet that test, never mind two or three 9/11s at the same time.
	Under derogation, the Government are entitled to take the measures that are strictly required for the exigencies of the situation. Derogation is not a new solution. The Belmarsh detainees were held under a derogation power, and the case failed on discrimination grounds. The control order powers in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 provided for derogating control orders, but they have not been used.
	My amendment sets out a process to enable the Secretary of State to make a designated derogation order in anticipation of any future need of such a terrorist attack. It incorporates safeguards such as judicial review and parliamentary approval, and this proposal would give the Government everything that they profess to need—an emergency reserve power for the truly exceptional cases, with appropriate safeguards.
	Why will not the Government accept my amendment? As has begun to emerge, the Government want the reserve power not for the extreme cases, but for far less than their public statements suggest. They want that power not for two 9/11s or for a substantial threat against the nation. The letter from the Minister to the Human Rights Committee on 6 June states:
	"The definition of grave exceptional terrorist threat which we now propose would cover events or situations similar to the bombings in July 2005, or a plot to blow up a shopping centre or a plot to commit terrorist atrocities overseas involving serious loss of life. We do not think any of these are covered by the Civil Contingencies Act definition of an emergency."
	The July 2005 bombings were dealt with under the 14-day regime. The shopping centre example would not be a multiple plot. Atrocities overseas may be nothing to do with us. Today we had another letter from the Home Secretary that said that the attempted airline plot would have been a case in point, but that was dealt with under the 28-day procedure.
	The implication from the briefing sent to the parliamentary Labour party is that all the cases listed, which were dealt with under 14 or 28 days, would in future be subject to the 42-day maximum. The power is not meant for exceptional cases but for the sort of cases that have been dealt with adequately so far under existing powers.

Andrew Dismore: First, I will come on to habeas corpus, as I promised the hon. Gentleman earlier. Secondly, we are subscribers to the European convention on human rights—and rightly so—and I propose a way in which we can lawfully do what the Government wish us to do in cases of major emergency.
	We have now had experience of the 28-day limit. I remind the House that 28 days was to be an exception, with the norm being 14 days and the issue subject to annual review. The DPP tells us that he has managed reasonably comfortably. Sue Hemming, the chief prosecutor, says that 28 days has proved to be "sufficient". We have already heard the figures for the alleged airline plot. Six were held beyond 14 days, with two charged just before 28 days and three released just before. The latter were not re-arrested or subject to control orders.
	The 28-day limit has been used only in two other cases. Up to now we have had no quantitative analysis of those cases, although the Opposition Front-Bench team produced some yesterday, which showed that there was little questioning of the suspects during that period. We have heard today that in fact the evidence to support a threshold charge was probably in place by 14 days for the two who were held up to the 28-day limit. However, until we receive the detail, we cannot be certain that that was the case. We must also take into account the possible urgency of the investigation. If we had had a 42-day limit, would those three people have been held for that time in the hope that some evidence might turn up, rather than for 28 days?
	The judicial safeguards proposed in the Bill are effectively the same as those for 28 days, save that the DPP and the chief constable have to authorise the application for the extension. The existing process is not fully judicial in accordance with article 5. The Government say that it involves a proper judicial hearing, but the case of Garcia Alva  v. Germany in the European Court of Human Rights makes it clear that the criteria that the Government operate do not match those that the court expects.
	Even if there were no problem with the process for 14 days, or even 28 days, it is wrong to say that neither would there be a problem for 42. The longer the period of detention, the more stringent the procedural safeguards need to be. The Government say that there has been no challenge to the extension process in court on the grounds of incompatibility, but there was: the case of Naseel Hussain, which was one of the first 28-day cases. It failed on a Catch-22: the High Court said that it could not review the decision of the High Court judge to extend the period of detention.
	That ruling would also, in effect, exclude habeas corpus. That court case decided that the warrant of further detention was a judicial hearing for the purposes of article 5.4. If that is so, that is the judicial hearing that would be required by habeas corpus, so any application for habeas corpus would be struck out by the court as an abuse of process. New clause 35 is very important because it would overcome that particular problem.

Andrew Dismore: I support the hon. Gentleman's new clause and I see it as a matter not of either/or, but of both.
	We hear that there will be an ex gratia compensation scheme. We can infer therefore that the Government accept that the provisions do not comply with article 5, because article 5.5 provides for compensation for someone held in breach of article 5. As the compensation scheme is to be confined solely to cases under these arrangements, and not applied generally to people held on charge and released, one can only assume that that is the case. We must also consider the impact that that would have on other suspects—for example, those who may have been held on bail for a long time and then acquitted. They will say, "Well, the Muslims are getting money, why aren't we?" That could have an impact on community relations.
	New clause 1, which I tabled, suggests improvements to the judicial process including entitlement to judicial process; a statement of the basis for arrest; the gist of the material forming the grounds for suspicion to be given to the suspect; a special advocate for the closed part of the hearing; and entitlement for the judge to look at whether there are reasonable grounds for the belief that the suspect is involved in terrorism and, in other words, to check whether the arrest was justified in the first place. At the moment, judges are entitled only to consider whether the investigation was necessary and has been conducted diligently.
	New clause 37 would provide for judicial review of the Home Secretary's decision, if the existing arrangements stay in place, on whether there is a grave threat, whether a reserve power is needed and whether it is needed urgently. I am not sure whether the Government agree that those should be subject to judicial review; I suspect not.
	New clause 36 would provide that similar provisions to those in the Civil Contingencies Act should apply to the Human Rights Act and the emergency regulations, so that the courts could intervene and quash them if they were considered to be unlawful. I think that the Government agree with the point and it would be appropriate to include it in the Bill.
	On the question of parliamentary safeguards, the independent legal advice to the Home Secretary as to whether the reserve power is needed would ask the same questions as a court, essentially considering whether an individual's detention would be appropriate. That will be passed on to the Select Committee Chairs, including me if I am still in office—I suspect that I probably will not be, considering the way that I am going. If I were still in office, on Privy Council terms, it is not quite clear what I would be able to do with that information. I would not be able to check whether it was accurate or to get advice on it. I would not be entitled to share it with members of my Committee. I would be entitled only to read it and to think, "Mm, interesting." I would not even be entitled to refer to it in a debate on extension before the House. Although the fact that it would be shared is welcome—I am a prurient, nosey chap who likes to know what is going on—it would not achieve a great deal.
	The safeguard allowing us to have debates within seven rather than 30 days is welcome, as is the fact that Parliament would be recalled. However, the debate will be even more circumscribed than we originally thought, not just for the reasons advanced by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) but because the questions will be the same all the way through. The DPP and police report to the Secretary of State will be in similar terms to the application that they will have to make in an individual case. Independent legal advice to the Secretary of State will again raise the same issues. The advice to Parliament would be redacted to prevent any prejudice to the trial. The same issues will arise with the Secretary of State's order as arise with individual cases, as she will have to be satisfied about them when she comes to make the order. When Parliament comes to approve the order, it will consider the same issues again. Therefore, because we cannot risk prejudicing a trial, the debate may only be very general. It will consider the sort of things that we debated in the previous cases on the back of the statement, which is hardly sufficient to justify the possible deprivation of liberty not only of the suspect in custody but of any other suspects arrested over the next 30 days. Inevitably, too, it would be a whipped vote.

Dominic Grieve: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that although it is absolutely right that the order would also cover the arrest of anybody else in the following 30 days, the trigger mechanism clearly implies that it will be precipitated by one case? That is the most likely outcome. Those circumstances will make it even more difficult to debate the issues surrounding the making of the order in this House, because the generality probably will not be there. The debate will be entirely dependent on the report, which will be made to the Secretary of State in the first place, on the operational need for an extension, relating probably to individuals.

Andrew Dismore: The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct, and his point adds weight to the argument.
	The other safeguard, we are told, is that the power will be reduced in length to 30 days. That is an improvement on what we had originally, but it can be renewed back to back indefinitely by the repetition of the same process. It could go on to 30, 60, 90 or 120 days. Who knows?
	There are alternatives. The Joint Committee on Human Rights first proposed a package of alternatives in 2006 that offers a coherent, human rights-compliant alternative. For the big emergency cases—the 9/11s—we have the derogation process. For all the others, there are alternatives.
	The most important alternative is threshold charging. Many Members, I suspect, do not understand what threshold charging involves. It means that the individual is charged on the basis of reasonable suspicion of the commission of the offence based on admissible evidence, as opposed to arrest, which can be based on inadmissible evidence. It is predicated on how the investigation is anticipated to proceed. We can compare that test with the normal full code test of "more likely than not". Some 50 per cent. of terror cases so far have been charged on that basis. It has proved very effective in practice, with a conviction rate of more than 90 per cent. In my view, it is important that that process is made statutory with appropriate safeguards, and my new clause 2 will do that.
	Incidentally, if we use the threshold test as our international comparator rather than the full code test, we see that the threshold test in some of the other common law countries, such as America and some of the continental countries, is not that dissimilar from some of the questions that investigatory magistrates have to pose. Both sides of the debate have probably overstated their case for and against international comparators, but if the threshold test is used, the position is perhaps a little clearer.
	The second alternative is the new offence of acts preparatory to terrorism. It is a broad offence, and when charged on the threshold basis and in combination with that threshold test it provides a broad and easy process for the prosecution service to follow. As we have heard, two of the alleged airline plotters were charged within 28 days with acts preparatory to terrorism on the threshold test. If, within 28 days, a reasonable suspicion cannot be established on the threshold basis that the accused has committed an act preparatory to terrorism—a very broad offence—the chances of our getting them for anything are probably negligible.

Michael Mates: When the House debated the 90-day detention limit last year, I abstained—not happily, because I do not happily go against the advice of my Front-Bench colleagues, but because I did not feel that the Government had made a sufficiently detailed case for the extension. Since then I have twice said to the Prime Minister—once in Prime Minister's Question Time and once when he made a statement about security—that a detailed case would need to be made if we were to be persuaded to change our minds. I am sorry to say that although the Government have gone some way down that road, they have not yet given any concrete reason why the extension is necessary, except to say that it may be required at some future event. That is a reasonable way to go, and I shall come to that point later.
	Let me refer back to the time when the Operation Crevice plotters were under investigation and on trial, and the Security Service carried out its biggest ever investigation; it should be congratulated on the success of that. Although the Intelligence and Security Committee received regular briefings about the progress of those cases, we did not know whether there had been any problems to do with the length of time for which the people concerned were detained, or whether it was causing any difficulty in bringing the charges and trials to a successful conclusion. It turns out that there was not any such problem in either of those cases, which are the two largest cases that the Security Service and the police have ever undertaken.
	One of the difficulties today has been that the Prime Minister said a few hours ago in Question Time that it was the Security Service that wanted the measures introduced; his words were very clear. The Home Secretary said exactly the same in her opening remarks today. I have known that that was not the case for some time, but until yesterday I felt myself unable to say why I knew that. Yesterday, on the Security Service website, Jonathan Evans, the director general of the Security Service, made it absolutely clear that that is the Security Service's position, saying:
	"we are not, and never have been"
	advising
	"the Government on pre-charge detention time limits."
	That is absolutely clear. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), the shadow Attorney-General, suggested—inadvertently, I think—that the Prime Minister misled the House. I do not say that, but the Prime Minister was wrong to say that the Security Service had wanted an increase in the time, and I am sorry to say that the Home Secretary was wrong to say exactly the same thing a couple of hours ago.
	I do not believe that the case has been made. I do not have a problem with the principle of detaining someone for longer if there is cause for it. Neither do I object in principle to someone saying, "We do not want to do it when or if there is a major terrorist incident." I am not happy about the Executive taking more powers for themselves, no matter what safeguards they write into a Bill. I am not making a party point; I would say exactly the same if our party was in government. The Government may want to plan ahead, but God forbid there should be an incident in which all the measures that we are discussing are necessary. This is the time to say, "The Executive have quite enough power. We must turn to the judiciary to decide the matter."
	If the Government came forward with a proposal that a High Court judge should consider individual cases when the police or security services said that they were in difficulty and needed more time, and the case was made to the judge, then it would be acceptable for the period of detention to be extended. I say that because I believe that the British public trust the judiciary. I am sorry to say that they do not trust an overweening Executive. Again, that is not a party point. I am afraid that when Governments say, "This has to happen, otherwise something dreadful will take place," the public view it rather cynically. If a High Court judge were to say the same thing, that would be largely acceptable to the British people.

Dari Taylor: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have a great deal of support and affection for each other. I do not believe that I had then the amount of evidence or information that I have now. I have seriously taken time to garner the information that is available, and perhaps I should have done so previously, but the evidence presented by ACPO was clear. In the interval between November 2006 and 2007, it saw a rise in the number of people identified as causing concern, possibly involved in terrorist activity, from 1,600 to 2,000. During the same period, we have had 15 terrorist attempts. I had not previously understood the quantity and capabilities of the terrorist group, but I think I understand them better now, and I hope that the House will respect this information.
	The add-on factor, which, again, I found quite compelling, was that such people do not just have an identity; they have multiple identities. We are looking at a situation in which many more people are potentially highly problematic to us. Added to that was the complexity of the situation. We have all spoken about the global nature of terrorism and its investigation and about an informal network that is working within communities. In addition, there is the use of mobile phones, internet communications and the rest, which makes the issue very complex.
	There is one more factor. The House knows about it, but it is important for me to state it. There is a language input. Some languages are becoming more and more a part of a world that could be attached to terrorist activity, and oftentimes we have very few people with the competence to understand them, especially when those languages become colloquial. I say to the House, with a smile, certainly as I look at the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) on the Opposition Front Bench, that one of them is an Afghan language known as Dari. He would have expected that to be a problem, would he not?

Dari Taylor: As the hon. Gentleman will guess, Lord Carlile did not make that statement to the Committee. However, he did make statements that many of us checked, including the statement that we are not the most anti-libertarian country at all. We compare very favourably with others. The other statement that I would make quite determinedly is that many of the countries that we compare ourselves with, such as Canada or Australia, most certainly have not faced the hideousness of 15 very serious terrorist attempts, and most certainly have not seen 52 of their citizens die and 800 be seriously affected as a result of terrorism. It is not true that comparisons are easy. I do not choose to make them; most particularly, I state that they should not be made.

Mark Hunter: I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Some of her hon. Friends have raised concerns about the legislation's impact, if it goes through. I ask her to reflect on the views of a former Metropolitan police commissioner, Lord Condon, who said
	"If we now go back and make it look as though we are going to challenge yet again the point of 28 days that we have reached, I fear that it will play into the hands of the propagandists, who will encourage young men and women—to all other intents and purposes, they are good people—to be misguided, brainwashed and induced into acts of martyrdom."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 13 December 2005; Vol. 676, c. 1175.]
	Is that not the point that her hon. Friends were making a moment ago? Does she not share those concerns? Does she not attach any importance at all to the views of the former head of the Metropolitan police?

Dari Taylor: As I just said, I have spoken to my Muslim community. I was very clear about addressing the issues and to date, no member of it has made a statement that the measure would ratchet up concerns. The hon. Gentleman is right to present the case, but I am saying to him that I do not have that problem. Perhaps Stockton, South is some exception to the rule; I do not happen to believe that it is. I would like to end—

Elfyn Llwyd: I rise to support Government amendments Nos. 4 and 5, which seek to delete the 42-day requirement from the Bill. Amnesty International published a report entitled "2007: The State of the World's Human Rights", in which Amnesty's general secretary, Irene Khan, says that fear of immigrants, fear of crime and fear of terrorism are used by states to suppress basic human rights. She develops that argument by saying that giving one group of people security at the expense of other people's rights is bound to fail, and that many anti-terrorist measures and laws have failed because they do not give that point enough consideration. They have
	"done little to reduce the threat of violence...and much to damage human rights and the rule of law".
	I regret to say that that those words are a reflection of what has been happening under this Government in this Parliament for some years now. Although the Government have decided that Ministers will no longer use the term "the war against terrorism", the need remains to ensure that we continue to feel under threat.
	We must remember that each and every one of us has a right to freedom, and yet the Government are prepared to weaken it—a task that is far easier against the background of terrorist and violent threats. Everyone knows that Government policies—whichever Government they might be—tend to be created in the tabloid press, and it is difficult to have a meaningful discussion on security and penal policy without sinking deeply into the quagmire of superficial politics.
	In saying that, I also readily acknowledge that the Government have a very difficult job to carry out. No one here would demur from the view that one of the prime duties of any Government is to ensure the security of their citizens. However, that raises the question of the balance to be struck between that obligation and the rights of the state. That balance is key to this whole debate. As Sir Ian Blair told us in evidence to the Public Bill Committee:
	"Your job is to balance civil liberties against the threat. That is what Parliament is engaged in." ——[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism Public Bill Committee, 22 April 2008; c. 22, Q26.]
	I venture to suggest that today's problems cannot be addressed effectively by simply eroding civil liberties.
	There has been enough talk about balancing the freedom of the individual with the security of society. Of course that is important and it must be central to our debate. However, many people believe that the scales have tipped far too heavily towards the state's interests, at the expense of guaranteed rights that we have recognised for a century and more—rights and freedoms that meant that we stood out as an example of a civilised system that provided for the interests of the individual, alongside the interests of the society or state. That used to be the situation, at any rate.
	We saw that keeping individuals under lock and key without going to court was inflammatory in Ireland and that it led to an intensification of the problems there in the 1970s and 1980s. I am not saying that the proposal for 42 days equates to internment, but clearly the same tensions come into play, negating rights that were guaranteed and increasing the number of those who turn to violence. It appears that the Government have simply not learnt the lessons of history. I regret to say that that failure could be very expensive, although I hope that I am wrong about that.
	To be fair, the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing has attempted to create a consensus on the issue over the past few months, and his office has been open to Opposition Members. The Bill contains some things that are helpful and acceptable, and they will be supported alongside certain safeguards. However, I am afraid that those on both sides of the Public Bill Committee came to the conclusion that there were misgivings about the Bill and about the mistakes made.
	The Minister of State did his best to build a consensus, so it is surprising to think that a consensus had been built up over the past two years on the 28-day limit. Many of us who were vehemently opposed to 90 days were eventually persuaded, pragmatically, to fall in line with 28 days. Now, a mere two years later, that consensus has sadly disappeared. One must ask whether there is now a compelling and urgent reason to revisit that decision—a decision of the whole House that was arrived at by consensus. Sadly, I do not think that such a case has been made at all, and I say that with respect to the Minister of State and the Home Secretary. In all the discussions that we have had in the past seven or eight months, we have not seen any evidence whatever to justify the move, let alone any compelling and/or urgent evidence.
	Several people have been quoted in this debate and several Committees and non-governmental organisations have been referred to. I shall avoid all that, as it can be taken as read. However, it is telling that both the Home Secretary and Sir Ian Blair say that there have been no cases in which the full 28 days were necessary. I have no desire to reel off all the quotations—I am sure that they are on the record—but hon. Members should think of the perfectly innocent people who are brought in and arrested. There seems to be an awful presumption among some people in the House that everybody who is arrested is, by definition, guilty. Good God, we have not reached that stage yet, and I hope that we never do.
	We must also think about something that has not been mentioned hitherto—the effect of keeping an innocent person under lock and key without advising them of exactly what charges they are facing. I have represented clients as a solicitor and a barrister. I have seen innocent people in custody being questioned for three or four days and it has left an indelible mark on several of them. It has caused psychological problems in some cases. Let us magnify that up to 42 days and see where we go from there. How will those people's nearest and dearest feel when they return home totally innocent, but wrecked psychologically?

Menzies Campbell: I regret to say that I do not share the conclusion drawn by the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden). I shall vote against the Government—not because I am soft on terror or because I fail to recognise the seriousness of the threat, but because I believe that the Government's proposals are profoundly mistaken, and that they are wrong in both principle and practice.
	Much of what I might have said has already been eloquently expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis). In approaching this matter, we all have a responsibility to show independent judgment, and we must exercise that judgment in striking a balance between the competing interests of security and individual freedom. If I have a criticism of the debate so far, it is that the second of these interests has formed a smaller part of our proceedings than I would have wished.
	When I look across at the Labour Benches, I am reminded that for a long time Labour Members voted against the renewal of prevention of terrorism legislation so far as it applied to Northern Ireland. In 1987, after I was elected, I participated in the votes on that. In those days, Labour voted against, but then, lo, there came out of the north-east a new young shadow Home Secretary from the constituency of Sedgefield, and he persuaded his party that instead of voting against, abstention would be sufficient. My point is that Labour Members did all that through exercising their independent judgment, and we too must exercise that when the matter currently under discussion goes to the vote. My objection to the Government position has been echoed by many Members in our debate: they have simply failed to prove the case at this time for the extension of the period of detention that they seek.
	I do not rely on the judgments of others. That is a kind of political card game: "You play your Lord Stevens, and I'll play my Lord Falconer, and what did Lord Goldsmith have to say about this?"—or Lord Carlile, for that matter. Such judgments may be persuasive, but they are by no means determinative of the positions we must take.
	I would have had more respect for the Government if they had been willing to put their case simply, frankly and bluntly. I am not against consultation, but the scurrying around of the last few days and weeks has been demeaning to the Government, and also to Parliament. Compensation for miners is, no doubt, an extremely important issue, as is raising the economic blockade of Cuba, but what the devil have they got to do with the prevention of terrorism in the United Kingdom? Also, from where have come the allegations of Danegeld for the Democratic Unionist party? I hope that none of these stories is true; I hope that they are all the product of fevered imaginations. However, if they are part of what is necessary for the Government to have their legislation, I suspect that they are not a price worth paying.
	I will vote against the Government because any time any Government seek to diminish the freedoms that are the cornerstone of our system, it is our duty collectively and individually to hold that Government to account and to subject them to the most rigorous scrutiny. That duty transcends all our other responsibilities; it is our primary duty. It is the constitutional reason why we are sent to this place, and, if I may be excused sounding somewhat flippant, I should say that it has nothing to do with the communications allowance, nothing to do with how many prepaid envelopes we use, and nothing to do with seeking to be regarded as the constituency MP of the year. Our job is to hold the Government to account and to scrutinise them as rigorously as we can. When what they are seeking to do interferes with the liberty of the citizen, that duty is even more important than it normally is.
	That duty transcends the credibility, and even the survival, of the Prime Minister. This debate and the vote that we will have in due course should not be about whether he is strengthened or weakened, because the issue is whether the rights of our citizens are strengthened or weakened by what we do in this place. I shall vote against the Government, because I think that the so-called concessions are—to use less elegant language than the Joint Committee on Human Rights did—political boiler plate.
	The concessions leave far too much to the discretion of the Home Secretary, they are—as the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has pointed out in several telling interventions—complicated to the point of incomprehensibility and ambiguity, and they blur the distinction between the responsibility of Parliament and the administration of justice. If we make a judgment that it is necessary to introduce the reserve power, and if that judgment is based on the circumstances surrounding an individual case, we inevitably become engaged in the administration of justice. The inferences that may be drawn from either a willingness or an unwillingness to accept the Government's case could be substantial in the subsequent disposal of the case against that person. I have searched my memory, and searched elsewhere, but I can think of no other instance when the House of the Commons has been called on to pass legislation based on individual circumstances after criminal proceedings have been commenced against an individual. If that is not a novel constitutional doctrine, I do not know what is.

Menzies Campbell: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; indeed, the Home Secretary gave the game away earlier today when she said, "Trust me." Of course one starts with a presumption in favour of trusting the Home Secretary, but such trust has not always been justified in every Home Secretary who has occupied that Front-Bench post since I first entered this House, and it is not likely to be justified in every future case. Parliament can exercise an informed judgment only if the information is put before it. If the information is put before Parliament in sufficient quantity, and it is of sufficient quality to enable it to exercise that judgment, that raises precisely the point that the hon. Gentleman makes: that the prejudice to the individual may be overwhelming.
	Once freedoms of the kind that we are debating are removed or even diminished, they are not easily recovered. We should never imagine that what we now take for granted was handed out by benevolent monarchs or by altruistic Governments. They were won. Sometimes they had to be seized physically, and sometimes they could be seized by political or other methods. But they had to be acquired, because the natural acquisitiveness of the Executive means that it takes power to itself as often as it can. If we give the power back, how difficult will it be to restore the freedoms and the personal liberty that we regard as so important?
	It is not right to legislate on the basis of what might be. It is much less right to legislate on the basis of what might be when that involves an attack on freedom and liberty. The reason why I was a little disparaging about Stevens, Falconer, Goldsmith and Carlile was that we should not be moved by the opinions of others. On an issue of this kind, we should be moved by our own judgment, and that is why I will vote against the Government.

Diane Abbott: As has been said throughout this debate, the first duty of Parliament is the safety of the realm. It is because I believe that the proposals on 42-day detention will make us less safe, not more safe, that I oppose them. I do not take terrorism lightly. I am a Londoner and I heard the last major IRA bomb, at Canary Wharf, from my kitchen in east London. Like thousands of Londoners, I waited for the early-morning call that assured me that friends and family on their way to work and school had not been caught up in those bombings. I will not take lectures from Ministers about not taking terrorism seriously.
	I do not believe, as Ministers continue to insist, that there is some trade-off between our liberties and the safety of the realm. What makes us free is what makes us safe, and what makes us safe is what will make us free. I ask the House to reflect on how we got here. Two years ago, this House emphatically rejected the proposal for 90-day detention. I do not talk very much about custom and practice in Parliament, but it is custom and practice that when the Government lose a vote on a proposal, they do not bring back a similar proposal in the same Parliament. My hon. Friends in the Whips Office now know why that is so: it is because losing the vote is a clue that the Government do not have the votes. The Government machinery has devoted 10 days to bone-crunching pressure on potential rebels, again because they do not have the votes. Ministers have appeared in the media saying that they have won the argument. They may win the vote, but they have emphatically not won the argument.
	Two years ago, the House rejected the 90-day proposal. The issue should never have come back, and all this high drama has been caused by bringing back something that the House has already rejected. I voted for 28 days, but I remind the House that I and others did so only under duress. We believed that by voting for 28 days the debate would be finished for this Parliament and an upper limit would be established. Some of us were unwilling to go as far as 28 days. That is why we are so upset that the Government have come back with this proposal, reneging—as far as we are concerned—on a tacit understanding that voting for 28 days would finish the debate on this issue for this Parliament.
	Why have the Government come back with this proposal? Speculation has raged on the Labour Benches as to what has moved the Prime Minister to take this dangerous course. Some people say that he wants to try to do something that Tony Blair could not do. Some people say that he is driven by the polls. Some people say that last year he saw an article in  The Sun that said that he was soft on terrorism and he has been heading down this path ever since.
	In reality and despite everything that Ministers say, nothing has changed since two years ago. The arguments that they used then about computers and complications are the arguments that they are using now. I ask Ministers to spare the House those arguments about decrypting computers. The law exists to deal with people who wilfully refuse to decrypt computer evidence.
	The Government came back with a proposal that the House rejected two years ago. Interestingly, when they did so it then took them several months to come up with a time limit. Was it to be 29 days, or 30, or 40? At one point, some of us offered to put our hands in a hat and to draw out a number for the Home Secretary. They did not have a number of days because this is not an objective, evidence-driven Bill. It is the purest politics. It is about the polls and about positioning. It is about putting the Conservative party in the wrong place on terrorism. I put it to colleagues that we should not play ducks and drakes with our civil liberties in order to get a few months' advantage in the opinion polls. We have got here through a process that involved the wrong practical politics and was wrongly motivated.
	Let me remind the House of what is problematic about the proposal. The security services have unusually gone public and said that they are not calling for the change. The Director of Public Prosecutions, unusually, has gone public and said that he is not calling for it. I remind the House that he is the prosecuting authority. We will hear from Ministers about the police, but the police are split on the subject. We have heard about Sir Ian Blair—whose days might be numbered under the former Member for Henley; hey, that's life—but the most senior Muslim policeman in the Metropolitan police force, Tarique Ghaffur, has said privately and emphatically that he believes that the risk to community cohesion of the proposal is not worth any marginal operational advantage. It is alleged—I use that word because I do not want to abuse parliamentary privilege—that he was called in by Sir Ian Blair and asked to consider his position. The police are split on this subject. Let us hear no more about the police as a whole being behind the proposal.

Diane Abbott: Yes, it was said that the proposals could be workable in the future.
	There are some very clever lawyers in the Chamber today, and it seems to me that much of the debate is locked into the legalities and technicalities. I come at the matter from a slightly different angle. It seems to me that, if someone is in detention for six weeks without knowing why, and they therefore have no notion of whether they will be able to get out without being charged, that detention is coercive in itself. We saw in the big miscarriage of justice cases what people will sign after only a few weeks.
	The possibility of compensation which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) is trying to float will put pressure on the police to charge. Some of my colleagues whom one might expect to be opposed to the change because of its effect on their communities have been seduced by the compensation package, but I have read the letter. It talks about going away and considering the subject, and says that the compensation might be implemented. How will it be sustainable to compensate Muslims for being held for more than 28 days when the police have held them completely lawfully and not to compensate others of whatever religion or ethnicity who have been held for seven, eight or nine days and have not been charged? The compensation package will not survive scrutiny by the courts.
	If my hon. Friends want to vote with the Government because they want to be loyal to the Prime Minister in his time of trial, they should do so. No one will think less of them for that. But they should not vote with the Government on the basis of a shoddy compensation package that will not stand up and will never come into being.
	The proposal is problematic. Some colleagues say that the provision will never be used and some say it is unworkable, so why not vote for it? They say that it is just a joke and will never be used, but even if the Government never use the provision I take exception to their saying that it is worth driving a coach and horses through our civil liberties for mere short-term political advantage.
	As I said earlier, because the Government do not have the votes, they have spent the past 10 days putting good, conscientious colleagues—who naturally enough want to support the leader of their party, our Prime Minister—under incredible pressure. People whom the Prime Minister has never spoken to in his life have been ushered into his presence twice in 48 hours. The House should have a shred of sympathy for them. People have been offered Cuba, and no doubt governorships of Bermuda have been bandied about. Any rebel Back Bencher with a cause is confident—if they vote the right way of course—that the Prime Minister will make the statement, give the money or make the special visit. That is humorous, but is it right that our civil liberties should be traded in such a bazaar? Is it appropriate or right that we should trade votes at the United Nations on the basis of such political pandering?
	The reason why the Government have had to put such pressure on people is because they cannot muster the votes. They have only one argument that could sway me, as a member of the Labour party for more than 30 years: the leader of our party is in a difficult situation, there are elements in the party that do not necessarily wish him the very best, so is this the time to vote against the Government?
	That argument could affect people who are loyal to the Prime Minister, do not want to see him go and do not believe that a new leader can wave a magic wand, but I tell the House this: I became active in politics in the 1980s, at a time of enormous turmoil—there were riots in Brixton, Liverpool and Bristol, "Scrap sus" was a huge issue and young black men were seen as the enemy within, just as young Muslim men are today. I came into politics because of my concern about the relationship of the state to communities that are marginalised and suspected. It is easy to stand up for the civil liberties of our friends or of people in our trade union, but it is not easy to stand up for the civil liberties of people who are unpopular, suspected and look suspicious—people the tabloids print a horror story about every day. However, it is a test of Parliament that we are willing to stand up for the civil liberties of the marginalised, the suspect and the unpopular.
	I came into politics about those issues, and I believe that if there is any content at all in Ministers' constant speeches about community cohesion we must offer every part of our community not just the appearance but the reality of justice and equality before the law. Everybody knows that the provisions will impact disproportionately on the Muslim and ethnic minority communities. Everybody knows that we shall not be detaining the Saudi paymasters of terror for 42 days; just as happened under internment, we shall be scraping up the flotsam and jetsam of communities. Ministers are talking about people such as my constituents, so when Muslim boys and black converts are in prison and their mothers, some of whom may not even be able to speak English properly, come to me and say, "They have had my son for five weeks and nobody will tell me why", what do Ministers suggest I tell them about a measure that has been brought in only for short-term political convenience?
	I did not come into politics to vote for such a stratagem, and despite all the current pressures on the party I will not vote for it. The case has not been made up until now and it has not been made in this debate. Of course the public are in favour of the proposal. Of course the people whose rights some of us are trying to defend are unpopular and suspect. But if we as a Parliament cannot stand up on this issue, and if people from our different ethnic communities cannot come here and genuinely reflect their fears and concerns, what is Parliament for?

David Davies: I have the near impossible task of following one of the finest speeches I have heard since being elected to the House of Commons. The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) need not fret: we will not be on the same side on many issues, although we are on this one. In the Home Affairs Committee and in the Public Bill Committee, I approached the subject with a very open mind. I have not been shy about expressing my view in the House that we need more people locked up in prisons; I have even argued with my Front-Bench colleagues on the subject. We need prisoners to serve longer sentences, and we need a lot more prisons to be built to house them all. I add one important caveat: people should not be locked up in prisons or police cells unless they have been charged and convicted of an offence. That is absolutely fundamental to the liberties of people in this country.
	When the Home Affairs Committee took evidence, and in the Public Bill Committee, it became obvious that the Government have not properly thought out their case. They were setting all sorts of constitutional precedents that some people have not considered. For example, I think it important that if a public servant, whether they be a police officer or in the security services, believes that a certain measure will be required, it should be up to them to make a case to a Minister, and up to the Minister to make the case to colleagues on both sides of the House. Too many times in the Select Committee and the Public Bill Committee we saw that the Government were not prepared to make the case for themselves; they expected public servants to come to the House of Commons and make the case for them. That is absolutely unacceptable. If the Government cannot make the case themselves, there is no case to consider.
	We have seen the selective way in which the Government have used the evidence that was put before them, and their selective quoting of the Home Affairs Committee report on the 42-day limit. There was not unanimous support for an extension beyond 42 days. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members on the Committee did not support it. Essentially, we said that if there was to be an extension beyond 42 days, there would, of course, have to be safeguards. We went along with that, rather unwillingly, so that there could be some form of consensus, and so that we did not have to divide the whole Committee on the issue. We said that although it would have to be amended, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 could be used in some form instead of the so-called safeguards that the Government came up with, to which I shall turn in a minute.
	I was not in Parliament when the decision was taken to invade Iraq. I suspect that I would probably have gone along with the consensus, had I been there, because I have always thought that those bright people of all parties in Parliament must know more than me, even though my gut instinct told me that the invasion was wrong. I even trusted Tony Blair when he said, "Trust in me." I have learned the hard way that we should never trust Ministers or assume that people in positions of power are any better than us.
	I did not appreciate the way in which the evidence that the Home Affairs Committee heard was twisted and turned by Ministers. On one of the first times that the Director of Public Prosecutions gave evidence to the Committee, he made it absolutely clear that he was against an extension beyond 42 days, yet his words were twisted and turned. We met the director general of MI5, and I met a senior member of one of the security services. They spoke to us in confidence, but now that a statement on pre-charge detention has been published on MI5's website, it is fair to say that we knew months ago that MI5 was not calling for the measure, yet we had to listen while Ministers gave a different impression. We have heard lots of quotes from Sir Ian Blair, and that is reasonable enough, but we did not hear about all the other senior police officers, such as Sir Paul Condon, who did not believe that any sort of extension was justified. Throughout the process, the Government have quoted selectively.
	The fact is that the issue comes down to something very simple: if the police have enough evidence to arrest somebody, they must have something tangible to go on. I can say that as a serving police officer. A police officer cannot simply go around arresting people without any evidence that they have done something wrong, and rightly so. Of course, it might take a little while to get together enough evidence for a charge. I am sure that in the past there was a temptation to get as much evidence as one possibly could, so that the strongest possible charge could be bought, but in some ways, the case for doing that has been removed, because we are to implement post-charge questioning—a measure that all my colleagues and I fully supported. That part of the Government's case no longer arises. As Sir Ken Macdonald said to us, if within 28 days enough evidence cannot be found to bring some charge against someone, any prosecution is likely to be very unsafe.
	Many colleagues have spoken about the Civil Contingencies Act and the fact that we would have the longest detention in the western world. I shall not add to that, as I want to allow others an opportunity to speak.
	One would have to be sentenced to more than three months in prison to serve 42 days, because of early release, release on tagging and all the other Government initiatives to turf genuine criminals out of prison. Somebody who has been held for 42 days or longer without charge would have done the equivalent of a prison sentence of more than three months. What is the latest proposal that the Government have come up with today to try to make those people feel better? "Okay, we arrested you at 5 o'clock in the morning, quite possibly at gunpoint, took you off, kept you there for 42 days, didn't even tell you why we had you in there, but here's some money. Don't worry about it. You were innocent, but have some money"—as if that will make anything better.
	I challenge the Minister. If he is serious about the Government's proposal, perhaps he will say a word about Lotfi Raissi. He was the trainee pilot who was held in detention in Belmarsh for about five months, and was released in 2002, his career in ruins. He has been fighting ever since for compensation. If the Government are serious about compensating people and they have a compensation package, perhaps the Minister will tell us what he will do for that gentleman, who was held for five months without any charges being brought against him.
	The Government have relied on emotion to try to get their case across today. They have not relied on facts. I am glad to be able to differentiate myself from rebels on the Government Benches by saying that if they wanted to do something about terrorism, they have had plenty of opportunity. They could, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said, have done away with the Human Rights Act, which has given so much succour to terrorists. It has allowed people who we know have been involved in terrorism to come into this country. The Government have then found that they are prevented from deporting them, prevented from putting them in prison until they go back, and prevented even from keeping them in their own homes while tagged—all because of the Human Rights Act.
	The Government tried to blame the judiciary, yet they brought in the Human Rights Act, which allowed the judiciary to do that. They could get rid of the Human Rights Act in a matter of weeks, if they wanted to. They could insist that people who come to this country learn our language and start to integrate, instead of allowing them to set up their own communities and maintain practices that are unacceptable in this country, such as forced marriage, polygamy and female genital mutilation, to which a blind eye is being turned by the Government. They should insist on integration, getting people to learn our language and getting them to fit in with our culture and traditions, rather than passing legislation that will do away with the liberties that British subjects and citizens have enjoyed for hundreds of years.
	Just as King John had to be brought to book by the barons and the lords when they brought in the Magna Carta in 1215, if we lose the vote tonight I hope that, once again, the Lords will come to our rescue—the rescue of the liberties of British people.

Martin Salter: I regret taking that intervention. The Government have doubled resources for the security services and a record amount of resources are going into counter-terrorism work. However, the hon. Gentleman brings me to my point on the complexity of the challenge facing SO15, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism unit. He himself as a member of the Committee, if he has read his papers, will have seen the SO15 statistics.
	In 2004, some 19,000 exhibits were retrieved and registered in terrorist investigations. They rose to 51,000 in 2005 and to 68,000 in 2006. Statements, messages and documents created rose from 33,000 to 62,000 to 83,000 to 91,000 last year. Action and lines of inquiries created rose from 16,000 to 28,000 to 40,000 to 42,000. Total records for legal consideration and disclosure rose from 69,000 right up to 197,000 in 2007. There is absolutely no doubt that terrorist networks have become more sophisticated and adept at using information technology and the latest techniques available, first to avoid surveillance, secondly to communicate with each other and thirdly to commit atrocities. We have to be cognisant of that fact. It is a matter of public record that in 1997 the UK security services seized just 19 mobile phones, one computer and seven computer discs in their terrorist investigations. Ten years later those figures had risen to 16,000 mobile phones, 353 computers and 2,541 computer discs. Yes, we can increase resources, no, we should not deny the fact that terrorist technology is on the march.
	The Home Affairs Committee has been party to private briefings from the security services. We know that there have been a substantial number of plots. We know that about 200 groups and 2,000 individuals give the security services cause for concern. Those numbers are going up, not down. I find it ironic that the shadow Home Secretary is happy to praise the professionalism of the police and the security services in foiling those plots, and we join across the Floor of the House in praising them for that, but when it comes to questioning their professional judgment, somehow we are not so keen to praise their professionalism and to take their advice. That led the Home Affairs Committee, in two separate reports, to a series of conclusions. In June 2006, before I and the hon. Gentleman who just intervened joined the Committee, it, under the excellent chairmanship—it is excellently chaired now—of my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), now the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, came to the following conclusion. Looking at the Government's case for 90-day detention, which was not particularly strong in my view, the Committee concluded:
	"None of the evidence we have reviewed of current and recent investigations would have justified a maximum detention period longer than 28 days."
	The Committee went on to conclude, however:
	"We believe...that the 28 day limit may well prove inadequate in future."
	That was in June 2006. It was the starting point for the extensive Home Affairs Committee inquiry that has just concluded.
	Both Front-Bench teams have, in exchanges across the Dispatch Box, referred to the acceptance of a case for exceptional circumstances. I am not praying in aid the motives of my Conservative colleagues on the Committee; I do not believe for one moment that they saw their names being attached to that recommendation as praying in aid a case for extension to 42 days. I am very happy to put that on the record, but the Committee accepted that there was a case for exceptional circumstances, as did Liberty and, I have to say, the Conservative Front-Bench team when it suggested that amending the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 could deal with exceptional circumstances.
	Let us read into the public record what was agreed by all parties:
	"If, in these exceptional circumstances, a temporary extension of the pre-charge detention period is deemed essential to secure successful prosecutions of terrorist suspects, the Government should consider building support for proposals that effectively reform the powers of the CCA, secure Parliamentary scrutiny and judicial oversight, but stop short of the requirement to declare a full-scale state of emergency."
	One reason why the Committee rejected the use of the 2004 Act was that it would be, frankly, ludicrous—this was the advice that we got from the police—for us to endorse an approach that declared a full-scale state of emergency in order to give the security services the powers that they might need to apprehend people who were the cause of that full-scale emergency.
	We were right to reject the CCA and we were right to listen to people such as Peter Clarke. I shall quote people who have supported my argument and people who have contradicted it. Peter Clarke, the former national co-ordinator of terrorist investigations, said on 3 June that
	"critics claim that the proposal is a draconian extension of police powers. It is not. Detention would be a judicial discretion, to be exercised following an adversarial hearing with both sides legally represented. This would be no rubber stamp."
	Justifying the point about a precautionary principle, he went on to say that
	"we should legislate now, and not in panic in an emergency."
	Sir Ken MacDonald has been oft-quoted in the debate. He was very honest: he made it clear that he did not see the case for going beyond 28 days at this point. But he said that the proposed legislation
	"would be compatible with the European convention on human rights and I think that it would be Strasbourg-compliant."
	That is significant. He indicated a willingness to use the legislation because, he said, it was his job not to see the Bill into law but to use the tools available to him. He said:
	"I am quite satisfied that this provision would be lawful. As I have said, if it was in law, we would use it if we ever found it necessary to do so." ——[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism Public Bill Committee, 22 April 2008; c. 57, Q149.]

Paul Goodman: If my hon. Friend reads the Government's new clause 20—one of the apparent concessions—he will see that the new power that they seek could be applied abroad. It does not merely apply to the United Kingdom, but to threats of terrorism to property abroad. That does not sound much like grave and exceptional circumstances to me.

Mark Durkan: Many hon. Members have made the point that a number of the protections offered alongside the extended power of detention do not add up to very much. That is true—they add up to less than the sum of their supposed parts. This chicane of hollow protections brings a new dimension to the notion of chicanery.
	In relation to the Secretary of State's power to activate the extended detention provisions and the question of independent legal advice, proposed subsection (1) of new clause 32 would require the Home Secretary to get legal advice only "as to whether" she "can properly be satisfied". It does not provide that she should be properly satisfied, referring only to "whether" she is. The Home Secretary is not obliged to follow that legal advice. Proposed subsection (6) sets out the duty to publish the full legal advice, but subsection (7) completely ousts that duty if the Secretary of State believes that such publication would not be in "the public interest". If the independent legal adviser does not agree to the edited version that the Secretary of State wants, none of the advice has to be published. So much for that protection.
	What of this House acting in the role of a grand jury? It will do so in circumstances that will at least be triggered by a specific case, although the effects of the extension will not then be case-specific, as they might affect everyone already detained and anyone subsequently detained within that period. That is what the House will be doing. We could be brought back during a recess—the Bill provides for a recall of Parliament—yet people are saying that we should deal with these matters only in a calm and reasonable atmosphere, not in reaction to the heat of situations. This could even happen during an election campaign. We saw bombs in Madrid during an election campaign and people know about the political fallout there; they know that there were doubts about how the Government handled, played with and interpreted that situation at the time, and the issues ricocheted through the body politic.
	We should think about the situation here if we vote for this Bill and the new clauses. We could be creating a situation in a which a terrorist group can deliberately contrive that its plot comes to the proper notice of the police and security services during an election. Hon. Members will be called to this place; some will have seen constituents arrested, and there will be others whose constituents could be affected by the new powers that had been triggered. Their communities will say, "What are you doing for us? We are told that there is significant parliamentary scrutiny and we have been put into the hands of MPs. You stand up and fight for us, and assert our rights." If they do not do that, what will happen? That could happen close to an election or during one—and we do not expect it to ricochet in a dangerous way through the electoral politics of different constituencies?
	Different MPs could be caught. An MP in one constituency might say to his constituents, "Sorry, I am a Government MP and I have to go by what the Home Secretary says. I have every sympathy with you, but there is nothing I can do or say." Another MP might say, "Well, I opposed that legislation and I will fight it now that it has been activated." In what position does that leave individual MPs? It leaves them in a completely invidious situation that no legislator, no public representative and no candidate should ever be in. Yet if we allow this Bill to go through, we will be inviting that sort of dangerous scenario, because the measures provide for the recall of Parliament during an election campaign.
	There is another respect in which the protection is hollow. We are told that the courts will be involved, and some hon. Members have assured us that there will be adversarial proceedings in the courts. Yes, there will be adversarial representatives, but there will not be any evidence. What is proposed is pre-charge detention before evidence is presented. The courts have never refused an extension of detention so far; never ever have they done so, and how, essentially, could they?
	This chicane of hollow protections adds up to very little. The protections are not only dubious, but dangerous. The thrust of these Government provisions is dangerous. They create a situation that will lead to the exercise of undue powers in unseemly and improperly controlled ways.
	On detention of up to 42 days, we have seen in the past how people have confessed to all sorts of things that they did not do even with seven-day detention. We should think of the Guilford Four and then the Maguires, who were brought in on the basis of what members of the Guildford Four had said. They were not even brought in to be questioned originally and they did not confess. What others were forced to say about them led to their being brought in.
	In the case of 42-day detention, will not people not only be in danger of saying all sorts of things about themselves to line themselves up for charging, but be in a position to say all sorts of things about others, in a context where this power will be used in all sorts of other ways? This power will end up, in practice, taking on all sorts of gross and ugly proportions that its supporters underestimate. They seem to think that it will be used in very limited ways, that it has only a limited trigger and that it has only limited application. That is not what the Bill says.
	We will see communities being fundamentally alienated from the state. We have had chief constables quoted at us the last couple of days. Let us just think what good community constables will say when this power is activated and a portcullis comes down between them and the communities that they have been working with, building contact and confidence. They will find themselves compromised and ashamed simply because, as police officers, they are arms of the state that has behaved in this gross way, leaving people not only resenting what has happened to some, but fearing what will happen to others.
	We have seen how counter-terrorism powers have been counter-productive in the past. That is the experience of Northern Ireland. It is not just internment; it is the litany of counter-terrorism measures that created that culture of alienation, the propaganda weapons and real new and additional victims.
	I warn the Government and those who would support them in the madness that is in this Bill: do not feed what you want to fight and do not destroy what this House ought to defend.

David Heath: I return to something that was said a long time ago by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd): the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing did a good job in Committee—I served on it—in trying to bring the various parties together on the vast majority of the Bill.
	There is a great deal of consensus in the House on how we fight terrorism. Sometimes when we have this highly charged debate, we forget that. Is there a threat from terrorism? Yes, of course there is. I was on Capitol hill in Washington DC on 9/11. I was in Aldgate on 7/7. I do not need persuading that there is a threat from terrorists.  [Interruption.] I tell hon. Members on the other side of the House that I understand their concerns.
	However, is there a need for further powers to fight terrorism effectively? Yes, there is. We have agreed the things that need to be done—the lower-order offences, the offence of acts preparatory to terrorism, the lowering of the threshold for prosecution, the post-charge questioning that forms part of the Bill and intercept evidence, which the Chilcot review is, I hope, providing is admissible evidence—and the legislation to require the provision of a key to encrypted material ought to be the answer to the question of how we deal with encrypted material within the period required.
	Is there an increase in the number of complex cases? I am persuaded that yes, there is. My answer to that is something that was decried earlier: we must provide more resources. I know that more resources have already been applied to the problem, but if there is a need for more interpreters, let us pay for more interpreters, pay for more police officers and have sufficient resources to do the job quickly. However, when I come to the question whether there is a case for this extension to six weeks' detention without a charge being placed, I do not agree and there is no consensus because it is unjustified, unfair, unworkable and profoundly unhelpful to our fight against terrorism.
	I heard the Home Secretary ask earlier, "How would we feel if somebody was released after 28 days and they then committed an offence on the 29th, 30th or 31st day?" I ask how she would feel if, under her proposals, that happened on the 43rd, 44th or 45th day. There will be no limit to this auction of time for detention without charge if that argument is sustained.
	I do not want to go into the issues of comparability with other jurisdictions—it is difficult to compare even common law jurisdictions, let alone those that operate on the continental pattern—but it worries me not that we are so far out of kilter with other common law jurisdictions, although we are, but that we are so far out of kilter with our history, our traditions as a country and how we maintain British justice.
	I see no justification for what the Home Secretary has presented as a safeguard—the interpolation of Parliament into a judicial process. It is a most extraordinary proposition that this House should be empanelled as a sort of grand jury. Some say that it will not be dealing with the specifics of a case, but it will, because of the way in which the new clauses and amendments are worded. They require evidence to be put before the Secretary of State in relation to the progress of a specific case, and they require her to present it to the House in as far as she can.
	The proposition is extraordinary because it defies jurisprudence, constitutionality and any concept of the illusory separation of powers, which we could debate at length. The House would be required to adjudicate on whether the Home Secretary was right in her assertion, but to do so either on the basis of evidence that would render the security services inoperable in the future or, more probably, without that evidence—perhaps on the basis of a dossier, and we all know what happens when the House decides matters on the basis of a dossier. We would thus be doing nothing more than rubber-stamp, or decide whether we liked the sound of the Home Secretary on the day when she presented the evidence to the House.
	At one point, the Home Secretary said "Trust me." I am sure we are often happy to trust her, but that is no basis on which to change essential liberties in this country, and essential elements of our criminal justice system. I want us to have consensus on the fight against terrorism, and I think we established a sort of consensus on 28 days, although it was not my choice; I saw it very much as a temporary expedient to avoid the adoption of 90 days. It worries me that all the noddy heads that supported 90 days are the same noddy heads that now support 42 days. There is a strong contention to be made that those noddy heads would support any number put before them by the Home Secretary.
	Let me say to the Government that it is not too late, even now, to avoid the defeat that is inevitable—if not here tonight, as I hope, at the other end of the Corridor later—and to reach the proper consensus that the country needs in order to fight terrorism effectively.

Frank Cook: I apologise for my late arrival. I did not arrive until after the opening speeches had begun, because I had to deliver a keynote address in Paris to a seminar on Afghanistan run by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
	I remind the House that in 2005 I escaped having to make a decision on the 90-day limit because I was Chairman of the Committee considering the Bill in question, and found no cause to exercise my mind strenuously in that direction. I remember distinctly saying to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) "David, why do you go winnicking on about 28 days?" He thought it rather unkind at the time, but I think he has since found the courage to accept my feeble attempt at humour.
	It gives me no joy or satisfaction to oppose this proposal, but it seems crazy to me. When the 42-day limit was first proposed, I thought "We agreed to 28 days when they wanted 90 days. Why, when they want to extend the limit again, do they not ask for 90 days again?" That led me to examine the proposal more carefully, and to understand the logic behind much of the argument that we have heard today.
	I do not want to go into the niceties of the legal terminology. That was done brilliantly by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). He referred not only to some of the legal mistakes, but to a range of options that have apparently been rejected—which is a great shame, because if we were serious about these proposals they could have provided us with a solution.
	Apart from the standard briefings from the agencies professionally engaged in these considerations, I have received only one representation from a constituent who supports the 42-day proposal. All the other constituents who have got in touch have opposed the measure, but today I received a text on my mobile. I cannot switch it on, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you well know, but I can reveal the contents of the message. My constituent has asked me not to oppose the Government because of the danger that doing so would pose to the three marginals in Teesside.

William Cash: In a nutshell, the problem is as follows. The proposals before us contain a procedure for Parliament to be involved in the process, which is extraordinary, because ultimately, what we are debating is the question of habeas corpus. That is why I tabled new clause 39. I am deeply concerned that although in any particular case a suspect has to be produced before a judge within 48 hours, under the arrangements of the Bill the whole process of habeas corpus will be severely restricted. It may not be a total suspension—great mistakes were made in the nineteenth century in respect of the coercion Act and the suspension of habeas corpus—but we must ensure that we achieve what my new clause proposes, which is that nothing in this Bill shall prevent or restrict a person detained
	"from making an application to a Justice of the High Court"
	and that there
	"shall be a condition of the detention that the person detained shall be produced forthwith to"
	that justice,
	"who shall enquire as to—
	(a) the circumstances of the detention;
	(b) the enquiries that are being made;
	(c) the likelihood of the detained person being charged within 42 days"—
	if the provision specifying that extended period is passed—
	"of any offence of terrorism or related serious indictable offence."
	Furthermore, if the justice is not satisfied with the inquiries made,
	"that person shall be released forthwith".
	I am not deeply concerned about the number of days; I do not think that that is the crucial question. What is fundamental is the relationship between the person being detained and the procedure of habeas corpus in respect of the judge. That key issue has not been properly discussed. We have witnessed what has effectively been a game of political football over this question. It is far too important for that. It is absolutely crucial that we maintain habeas corpus.
	I know that other Members wish to speak and that the Home Secretary will need to make some final remarks, so I shall conclude by simply saying that the most important writ available to the English courts is habeas corpus. It has been clearly stated that
	" Habeas corpus is probably the oldest of the prerogative writs. Authorising its issue in appropriate cases is regarded by all judges as their first duty, because we have all been brought up to believe, and do believe, that the liberty of the citizen under the law is the most fundamental of all freedoms. Consistently with this, an application for a writ of  habeas corpus has virtually absolute priority over all other court business."
	However, it is only available when there is a question of illegal detention, and the arrangements under this Bill will, effectively, restrict the application of habeas corpus.
	The most important constitutional authorities have suggested that the Supreme Court Act 1981 should be amended to ensure that habeas corpus is added to the forms of relief, so that it runs at least parallel to the other alternatives. I do not believe that judicial review under the Human Rights Act is the right way to proceed.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, and I undertake to look very carefully at his new clause and to talk further with him about how we can be assured that the principles that he has outlined will be carried forward in our proposals.
	Hon. Members have spoken passionately today about the importance of getting the right balance between national security and individual liberty. I applaud the conviction with which hon. Members have expressed their views. Parliament has shown again how it is a most formidable defender not only of our liberties, but of the protections that we need to have in place to ensure that all in Britain can enjoy those liberties. For precisely that reason, the reserve power that we seek in the Bill will be subject throughout to the most searching parliamentary safeguards, in addition to having to meet high legal thresholds.
	It is because we understand the value of individual liberty that we believe that the power should be held in reserve, for use only if we need it in exceptional circumstances and only for a temporary period, just as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who is not now in his place, has argued. He and other hon. Members have also rightly emphasised the importance of the impact of our actions on communities; we must always be aware of that community impact. In addition to the investment that we announced last week, we will review the impact of our counter-terror legislation on our communities, but we are clear that terrorists target all communities, regardless of faith or race, and that our legislation is designed to protect all communities, regardless of faith or race.
	It is not after we pass a piece of legislation in this House that Muslim children get bullied in the playground or that young Muslim men feel unable to travel on the tube without getting suspicious glances. Such situations occur in the wake of events such as 9/11 and 7/7, where not only do the criminal actions of a violent and extreme minority cause death and destruction, but they can cause recriminations, unfairly and wrongly, against those communities. That is what we need to safeguard against, and that is what our provisions are aimed at.
	The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) and the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) have made much today of an allegation that in the case to which reference has been made, where two people were detained for up to 27 or 28 days and then subsequently charged, somehow it would have been possible to charge them before the 27th or 28th day. Others have scandalously referred to that as being "sexed-up" evidence. The claim that there was sufficient evidence to charge suspects after four and 12 days but the charging decision was somehow delayed is a slur on the Crown Prosecution Service and on those who investigated that case. The CPS must charge a person at the earliest possible point, and that happened in this case. The Director of Public Prosecutions has said:
	"When the material is sufficient, and the prosecutor...believes that a charge should be laid, it will be laid. The idea that we have sufficient evidence after 14 days, but...wait until 26 or 27 days to charge is wrong." ——[ Official Report, Counter-Terrorism Public Bill Committee, 22 April 2008; c. 55, Q141.]
	Of course, nobody can be detained unless the detention is needed for the purposes of gathering evidence, and we have been clear about that in the Bill. The judge would not agree to continued detention unless it was needed and he was satisfied that the investigation was being carried out diligently and expeditiously. So, alongside a scandalous slur on the police officers carrying out that investigation and on the prosecutors who worked day in, day out to bring a charge, there is also a suggestion that the judges themselves made the wrong decision.

Dominic Grieve: My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) made no slur on the police or the Crown Prosecution Service. He made a statement of a number of facts about when the evidence was available, and I note that the Home Secretary has not challenged those in any way. Those were the only points that he made and he went out of his way to say that he was not suggesting that the overall period of detention was in some way wrong, merely that on the fourth and 12th day that evidence had been available. If the Home Secretary disagrees with that, perhaps she will tell the House that my right hon. Friend is wrong.

Jacqui Smith: I explained earlier the type of grave and exceptional threat that would be necessary, and I have explained how Parliament could test that.
	I hope that hon. Members will agree that in this House we should always rely on force of argument and the rule of law to counter terror. Today hon. Members have heard the arguments, and we have all now to make a decision on the protections that we need to ensure that the rule of law continues to run. The British people place their trust in us to take the right decisions to protect them. I cannot and will not wish away the threat from those whose aim and sole intent is to blow up our citizens, of all races and religions, on our streets.
	When it comes to dealing with terrorism, my view is straightforward. We cannot simply hope for the best. We must have plans in place that mean that we can cope with the worst. The question that everybody needs to answer is whether they are confident that no police investigation would ever need to hold somebody for longer than 28 days. I greatly prize consensus. It has motivated me in bringing these proposals. However, important as consensus is, I prize the interests of Britain's security above it. We should do the right thing to protect our people, and that is what I am asking the House to support me in this evening.
	 It being Six o'clock, Mr. Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Orders [1 April and 10 June] .
	 Question  put and  agreed to.
	 Clause  read a Second time, and  added to the Bill.
	Mr. Speaker then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

George Galloway: That is truly magnificent, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I have plenty to say. Perhaps I will be able to quote Amnesty International in more detail in the time that I did not think that I would have available.
	This policy is not only morally bankrupt, it is politically disastrous. Afghanistan is the perfect example, but the Ethiopian Government preside over a country where famine and mass starvation stalk the land. They are being helped militarily to invade, occupy and threaten their neighbours. What can that conceivably do for our standing in Africa, or for our credibility when we lecture the Governments of Sudan or Zimbabwe?
	It would be bad enough if our difficulties in that respect were confined to Africa, but the problem is much worse. The Somalians are the tallest people on earth, but they are virtually invisible, politically, on the international stage and in this country. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of Somalians here, either because they have European Union passports or because they are refugees from the very fighting that we initiated and are now fuelling. Increasingly, young Somalis are furious, bitter and angry. They nurse their wrath as they watch—on Somali television or other Muslim channels—the carnage being wrought in their country.
	Two million people in Somalia are living as refugees, out of a population of 11 million. That is almost a fifth of the total: to scale it up, in our country that would amount to 12 million people. There are another 1 million Somali refugees in neighbouring countries, and God knows how many hundreds of thousands are scattered across the EU.
	In their bitter exile, the sons—and may be the daughters too—of those Somali families are being brought up bitter and furious at the role played by the west in the problems that they see on their televisions screens. We have spent hours this afternoon trying to deal with the problem of terrorism, but we cannot see how that connects with the way that we constantly infuriate young Muslim boys and girls with the double standards and injustices of our policy towards their countries and the countries from which their parents come.
	We cannot see the connection between the growth of extremism and our actions. The Government are always looking for a cleric or an organisation to ban or to blame for the radicalisation of Muslim youth in Britain. But those young people do not need a cleric or an organisation to radicalise them: they just have to watch the news and see what our Government are doing in Muslim countries such as Somalia.
	I know that the Minister has seen Channel 4's "Dispatches" programme. She will not claim otherwise, even though she is answering a debate on human rights in Somalia. I hope that she will do a better job than Lord Malloch-Brown did when it comes to explaining how are taxes are being used. Among other things, that tax money could be used to help starving people in Ethiopia. It could be used to keep our pensioners warm in winter or to keep some post offices open.
	I see that the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is Under-Secretary of State for Transport and the Minister responsible for closing post offices, is standing by your Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that that counts as being in the House and that it is therefore in order for me to refer to him.
	The British tax money that I have mentioned could have been used for a better purpose, but instead it is being spent on the security forces in Somalia, which Amnesty International, as well as Channel 4, accuses of widespread abuses of human rights—of torture, murder, disappearances, kidnapping, extortion and grand larceny. Why are we allowing the Interior Minister of Somalia to travel back and forth into our country unmolested when he is accused by aid agencies of purloining international aid—desperately needed emergency aid for hungry people—for himself and for political purposes for his political clan? Why are the Government not stopping him at the border and questioning him about where the money went that was put into Somalia and has disappeared?
	Aid agencies will not now, by and large, set foot in Somalia, so catastrophic has the situation there become. I ask the Minister why we are supporting the President, the Interior Minister and the chief of police in Somalia, and allowing them to come and go freely without answering the charges that are being made against them? When will the Government at least condemn the human rights abuses in Somalia? Amnesty has voluminously recorded them, but not a squeak has come from the Government, which has never done roaring at Sudan or Zimbabwe. Why? Because we are deeply complicit in that. Indeed, we are paying for it; we are paying for the security services that are committing these crimes in Somalia.
	The Government might think that because most Somalis in Britain do not, for one reason or another, have votes, they can be ignored—that tall as they are, they can be disregarded. However, the truth is that the Somali community in Britain's loathing of the actions of our Government is a ticking time bomb in Britain. I, if not the Minister, am constantly exposed in my constituency, and in Birmingham and Leicester and other places, to the anger of these young Somalis. There is a disaster waiting to happen. I hope that the Minister will announce today that, in the wake of the Channel 4 revelations, she will investigate the allegations properly, and that she will report her findings to the House.
	I am talking in my speech tonight about not only the current British Government's foreign policy towards the horn of Africa and Afghanistan, but about previous Governments' foreign policies, too. I remember being on the Opposition Benches and accusing the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, of having opened the gates to the barbarians by her support for the so-called mujaheddin in Afghanistan so many years ago. The policy that our Governments have followed of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" has proved to be fatally flawed everywhere that it has been tried, and it is now being tried all over again in Somalia.
	Many Somalis will be watching our debate this evening—word is out about it in the Somali community, and it is being shown on Universal TV and other Somali channels. For their sake, I hope that the Minister will come clean about the dreadful problems that exist, and I also hope that she will say some words to the Ethiopian Government.

Mark Pritchard: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having secured this debate. I apologise for having arrived late for it; I was caught somewhat unawares as it began early. What is best for Somalia and its people is, of course, security. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Ethiopian Government are providing security in Somalia at present, and that they want to withdraw from Somalia at the earliest possible moment? Will he also join me in encouraging the United Nations, the African Union Mission in Somalia—AMISOM—and the African Union to ensure that troops are put back into Somalia in order to give Somalis that security, which they need? Ethiopian troops want to return to Addis Ababa.

George Galloway: I shall not go further down that track. Perhaps the camera caught the verisimilitude.
	The truth is that the Ethiopian Government are carrying out a service for the people who give them weapons, for the people who give them money and for the people who give them diplomatic and political support. They are having a beano in the Ethiopian embassy next week. Perhaps the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) will go to it; he will certainly get an invitation in the post following his intervention. The Ethiopian Government are having a beano in the Ethiopian embassy in London to celebrate the 17th anniversary of their coming to power, and it is going to be a very grand event.
	That event comes at a time when the Ethiopian Government's own people are starving to death. Their children are starving to death—120,000 children have a month to live—they are invading and occupying their neighbouring countries and nobody says boo about it. In fact, far from saying boo, people are saying, "Here's some more military and financial aid to do it." That is because the Government of President Bush, who are utterly discredited and on their way out, with virtually nowhere to go except Downing street on Sunday for one last photo call, regard the defeat of the former Islamic Government in Somalia as part of their war on terror.
	That is what this is all about. Ethiopia is playing the role of hammer in the horn of Africa for the policy of the United States and its war on terror. That is what Ethiopia is doing, so it will not withdraw until a new American Government, hopefully with a Kenyan-affiliated President, tell them that actually this policy is deeply flawed. The puppet regime of British citizens imposed on Somalia by the Ethiopian invasion would not last five minutes if the Ethiopian forces withdrew—that regime would have to withdraw with them. So, any Government who come to power in Somalia in the future will be filled with hatred of Britain and the United States.
	That is the problem that we keep making everywhere; we intervene either to prop up tyrants or to support tyrants because we do not like the tyrants that they are fighting against, and we generate still more problems for ourselves. We wonder why that is, and we agonisingly debate anti-terrorism laws. We wonder why so many people in the Muslim world want to hurt us. We wonder why so many young people in the Muslim world are so bitter and angry about us that they want to hurt us. Is it any wonder? Can it be any wonder to any sane person? I beg the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to believe me when I say that it is because of the kinds of policies that I have described. I talk to Somalis all the time, and I know that the rage the Somali community both in Britain and around the world feels about Britain and America's role in their country generates terrorists. As the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), who saved the Government's bacon earlier this evening, is in his place and as we spent so many hours discussing anti-terrorism, let me spell it out: we are making new terrorists in Britain with our policy towards Somalia, with our double standards and with our hypocrisy.

Mark Pritchard: While the Government of Ethiopia are not perfect—indeed, there are Governments closer to home who are not perfect—it is right that human rights abuses by the Somali security services are fully investigated. Nevertheless, does the hon. Gentleman accept that if Ethiopian troops withdrew, it would create a security vacuum in which terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, would create mayhem in the horn of Africa, which is a key strategic location, and that would come back to haunt us?

Meg Munn: I welcome the opportunity to reply to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway) in this debate. I see this as an excellent chance to highlight how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seeks to address a number of issues relating to Somalia.
	As my noble Friend Lord Malloch-Brown, the Minister for Africa, said in his statement this afternoon, we congratulate the Somali transitional federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia on reaching agreement on the cessation of violence. That agreement was signed by both parties in Djibouti on Monday and witnessed by members of the international community. I wish to thank the UN Secretary-General's special representative, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, on his continued efforts to mediate in the talks between the parties which resulted in the agreement. This is a positive step and we look forward to all parties fulfilling their commitment to cease armed confrontation. We are committed to working with the UN to support this process.
	Human rights issues in Somalia are longstanding and complex. They cannot be attributed to any one cause, and there are no easy or obvious solutions. Somalia is not like other countries. Serious violence, lack of governance structures and the deteriorating humanitarian situation have been ongoing for 17 years. Many in Somali society have been brutalised by years of violence. It is therefore often individuals, not answerable to any particular group or commander, who carry out abuses on their own initiative. That makes it even more difficult to prevent further abuses and to bring those responsible to justice.
	Given that complexity and the insecurity in Somalia, there is little opportunity to monitor the situation reliably or gather and verify facts or allegations. Reporting is often biased and may be exaggerated to exert influence on the international community. The only sustainable way to address human rights in the long term is to engage in effective state building, concentrating on developing institutions, parliamentary accountability, an inclusive security sector and delivery of basic services. Short-term fixes that do not focus on state building will mean we return to the issue year after year, prolonging the suffering of the Somali people.
	Reports of incidents and accusations of human rights abuses by Ethiopian troops are difficult to corroborate and have been categorically denied by the Ethiopian Government. Ethiopian troops in Somalia are carrying out a role that security providers in Somalia do not have the capacity for. Many critics forget that fighting between militias went on for 15 years before Ethiopia intervened, at the invitation of Somalia's transitional federal Government.
	African Union member nations have not yet committed to contributing sufficient troops to allow for full deployment of the African Union mission in Somalia, which currently has only 2,400 of the 8,000 troops mandated. Further planning for a possible UN mission was called for by UN Security Council resolution 1814, although that is unlikely to be mandated soon. Evidence from other Ethiopian peacekeeping deployments indicates that they make a positive contribution to missions. Ethiopian troops are likely to form the largest contingent of the UN-African Union mission in Darfur.
	We regularly engage with human rights organisations, listen to their views and appreciate their efforts to gather information and evidence on human rights. We and they fully acknowledge that allegations of abuse are made against all parties to the conflict in Somalia. We sponsored an Arria meeting at the United Nations in New York on 31 March to enable Governments and the non-governmental organisation community freely to discuss human rights and humanitarian issues and to exchange views on how to achieve progress in Somalia.
	The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow might be interested to know that in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), I said:
	"We unreservedly condemn all proven incidents of human rights abuse and expect those responsible to face justice."—[ Official Report, 3 June 2008; Vol. 476, c. 832W.]
	My noble Friend the Minister for Africa, Lord Malloch-Brown, raised the issue of human rights in Somalia with the Ethiopian Prime Minister in late January 2008. Our ambassador to Ethiopia regularly raises the issue of respect for human rights in Somalia at senior levels of the Ethiopian Government. Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials in London and at the UN have also raised the issue with their Ethiopian counterparts.
	Ethiopia has told us that it intends to withdraw from Somalia and that it has reduced force numbers by more than half since late February 2007. The Ethiopian Government are extremely positive about the newly signed peace agreement, which includes a strategy for their withdrawal from Somalia. Until Ethiopia withdraws its troops completely, we urge them to use only appropriate force, adhere to international humanitarian law and respect human rights. However, for Ethiopia to withdraw from Somalia before an effective alternative force has been established would risk creating a dangerous security vacuum. Somalis would suffer the most from such a development.
	The UK is a leading contributor to world efforts to rebuild the Somali state. We support the efforts of the UN Secretary General's special representative for Somalia to engage with civil society and to help bring about social and political reconciliation that will lead to greater respect for human rights and religious freedoms for all Somalis. Through helping to shape UN Security Council policy, and our membership of the EU and the international contact group, we press for greater focus on human rights in Somalia. We asked the UN to enhance its capacity to monitor and report on the human rights situation in Somalia and fully supported the Human Rights Council resolution on 20 March to renew the mandate of an independent expert. Both UN Security Council resolution 1814, unanimously adopted on 15 May, and the EU General Assembly and External Relations Council conclusions, adopted on 26 May, support the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, including the independent expert for Somalia, and encourage them to undertake a fact-finding and assessment mission to Somalia to address the human rights situation.
	We co-chair the donors group and are the second largest bilateral humanitarian and development donor. We are also the second largest bilateral donor, after the US, for the African Union mission to Somalia. We are a key donor to the UN Development Programme effort to develop a full justice system, including improving the police force and the judiciary and penal systems to an internationally acceptable standard. I understand that the hon. Gentleman thought that that issue was a matter for the Department for International Development, but I can confirm that it is a policy area of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
	We value human rights highly. No other states are as active as the UK on human rights issues in Somalia. We urge other states to join our efforts and encourage international human rights organisations to concentrate their advocacy activities on pressing other less active states for support, too.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Seven o'clock.